


Multi-Culturalism

by AJ_Lenoire



Series: Avengers Fan Fiction Collection [8]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Remembers, F/M, Foreign Language, Humour, M/M, Snarky Jarvis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 07:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3969333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AJ_Lenoire/pseuds/AJ_Lenoire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An experiment to make a universal translator goes - as many of Tony's experiments do - horribly wrong. A few surprises are in store for the Avengers when the effects of this malfunction truly come to light, and they may have just met their matches in each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Multi-Culturalism

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Imagine the Avengers getting hit with some sort of spell that makes them revert to their first language](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/308535) by avocadoatlaw (Tumblr User). 



> Okay, this is really badly written and basically not at all beta'd, I just wanted to write something fun.

Okay, he was going to _kill_ Tony. Absolutely kill him.

“It’s the perfect way to be able to understand other people, Banner!” he’d said, “It’ll be easy once we use Thor’s Allspeak as a basis!” he’d said. “What could possibly go wrong?” he’d said. But of course, this was Tony, and the experiment had gone wrong – basically, they’d been trying to make a universal (like _universal_ , all alien races included) translator. One that could translate even a language it had never heard before. It would have been a technological feat the lieks of which had never been seen before; a breakthrough of communication and goodwill, not weaponry and death (something that Tony had been eager to remedy ever since getting a very up-close look at his legacy). It would have been _ground breaking_.

 _Would_ have been. Hadn't been.

It had gone wrong.

So instead of allowing the person or people in the experiment’s centre to (temporarily) understand and speak/translate any language (through some complicated matrix that involved scrambling brain-waves and the language acquisition center of the brain, mixed with a little Asgardian magic) ... well... it was just another one of _those_ days at the Avengers Tower.

* * *

“Брюс,что происходит?” Natasha asked him, “Почему я не могу понять, кто-нибудь?” he spoke absolutely no Russian, but could only assume she was asking what was happening – that first word had sounded a lot like his own name; Брюс. He had not expected anything less when he realised what the experiment’s effects had been. Natasha never made a _point_ to remind people she was Russian, but her lack of simple American mannerisms and her occasional lapses in idiom-comprehension, crossed with a very brusque personality made it clear to see.

“Hvað er að gerast, vinir mínir?” came Thor‘s voice. He was walking around proudly and somewhat dazed, “Allspeak mín virðist hafa bilað.” His Allspeak, Banner supposed, had been neutralised in the blast, too. To Thor, there was no difference in his speech because he was speaking as normal, but now he could not understand the others, and they couldn't understand him. He couldn't help but think about the fish from _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ and he found himself wishing he had one, because whilst Thor and Natasha were bearable, it turned out that things were just all downhill from there.

Clint, who had grown up in a circus and had told everyone he'd gone deaf from a misfired sonic-boom arrow in his early SHIELD days, was refusing to talk, and making wild gestures with his hands. It took Banner a long moment to realise that was because the translator had included gestural languages and that Clint, like Natasha, basically lied for a living. He wasn't refusing to talk; he _couldn't_. He was "speaking" in sign language.

 _Bruce, what’s going on?_ Clint was signing madly, _I can’t understand anyone!_ In all honesty, his not-talking was probably not because he physically couldn't, but because he didn't know _how_ , and unfortunately for him, Banner didn’t know ASL.

“I-DON’T-KNOW-WHAT-YOU’RE-SAYING!” Bruce bellowed, as if yelling would help. Either Clint was just playing around or he was being stubborn, because his hearing aids were still working – he’d flinched violently when Natasha had cried out angrily at Thor for stepping on her foot. Clint scowled at Banner, understanding his tone and expression if not the individual words, and made a few gestures that were certainly _not_ ASL. Banner swore at him irritably, then squeezed his eyes shut and slowly counted to ten. The absolute last thing they needed was for him to lose control - besides, the Other Guy wasn't much good at _any_ language.

“JARVIS?” He called upwards, now significantly calmer, though still irritated and confused. “Could you run a diagnostics on what happened to the others?” Steve was still out cold, as was Tony, but his main concern was if the effects of the blast had been permanent or more damaging than a translation mishap - sure, the translator was only supposed to be temporary, but it wasn't supposed to do _this_ , either.

“ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ONE-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ZERO-ZERO-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ZERO-ZERO-ZERO-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ZERO!” JARVIS' reply was nonsense in British panic with a hint of confuxion, and Bruce groaned into his hands. _Great_ , he thought, _even Tony's God-AI is out for the count_. He'd been hoping JARVIS could provide some real-time translations for everyone, but no such luck, because but Banner couldn’t understand a word – or, rather, a number – of what he was saying. All he knew was that it was binary code.

 _Why would he be talking in binary?_ Banner wondered, _He never spoke to us in binary, that’s a computer’s language_. Wait... it was a computer’s language. A computer’s _first_ language.

“Oh my god...” He muttered, “Everyone’s talking in their first language...” He looked around; it made sense. Clint had evidently lied; been born partially deaf, and would have obviously learned ASL as a first language. The experiment resorting him to this ASL-monolingual state instead of an English-monolingual one was obvious now; a result of Tony’s programming gestural languages into the translator. If he’d wanted to, he could have understood bees - that is, if it had _worked_. As for Natasha, it was obvious she would be speaking Russian, and somewhat understandable for JARVIS to be speaking in (albeit very panicked) binary code.

 _Please wake up, Tony..._ He thought desperately, _or Steve, either one of you guys will do..._ At least he’d be able to understand _them_. They were as born-and-raised American as he was, and maybe Tony could find a way to fix JARVIS, and they could work from there. To make matters worse, the blast had shorted out the tower's communications systems (the last word in irony, he was sure) and that included phones and Wi-Fi, so there wasn't even Google Translate to attempt shoddy and grammatically incorrect explanation. With the fixing-JARVIS idea in mind, Bruce decided to wake Tony first. Though Steve was infinitely less trying, he was also infinitely more incompetent with anything more complex than a laptop. He was still only just getting the hang of video games, actually (but when he understood, he was a _demon_ \- him and Natasha were as much of an efficient, deadly team in video games as they were on SHIELD missions).

“C’mon, Tony...” he muttered, “Now is _not_ the time for a nap..." His patience was rapidly beginning to fray, and he soon devolved into yelling. "Oh for... _WAKE UP!_ ”

Tony’s eyes snapped open and he bolted upright. COnfusion flickered across his face for the barest moment, but he was soon grinning in that maniacal-scientist way of his, albeit leaning very heavily on Bruce. Bruce led him over to the sofa where Natasha was gawking at Clint, who was signing exasperatedly to her (and she was clearly not understanding) and plonked him down next to Clint. Thor was on Natasha’s other side, watching the conversation with interest, but clearly understanding none of it. Clint turned briefly to wave a _hello_ to Tony, then back to Natasha. Banner had no idea what he was saying, but could only assume it was along the lines of _Natasha, why can’t you understand me?_

But Banner’s attention was brought back to Tony when he was tapped on the shoulder,

“Hey, Bruce,” he began, looking mildly confused, and for a moment Banner was relieved – _hey, Bruce_ was most definitely English.

But then, as usual, Tony had to keep talking, and ruined it.

“¿Qué pasó? Funcionóel experimento?” He asked his fellow Avenger, and Banner’s jaw dropped faster than a cartoon. His eye twitched and in the backs of his mind something (not Hulk-related, thankfully) snapped.

“What.” Banner asked flatly, a deadpan if there ever was one. “I–... You–... **_what?!_** ” His shout was a mixture of complete and utter incredulity, and a dash of simple irritation. Tony spoke _Spanish?_ Moreover, as a _first language?_ How? _Why?_ Both of his parents had been American – hell, Steve had _known_ Howard, and he sure as hell hadn’t been a Spaniard. Even his mother, Maria, had been a pretty typical American woman (and a lovely one, if Tony's infrequent comments on his dead parents were anything to go by, but the genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist seemed to have had a pretty healthy relationship with his mother, if not his father).

“Why are you–?" Banner began, staring at Tony, who was flouncing around with a sort of childlike naivety and innocence that only served to make Banner himself more irritated, "Oh, forget it!” He exclaimed, pushing Tony off of him,

“Qué? ¿Ocurre algo? _Hey, espera!_ No te entiendo!” The penny had finally dropped, and Tony had evidently just realised he couldn’t understand Bruce; his eyes were wide and his hands were slapped over his mouth, “ _QUE PASA?_ ” He cried, sounding almost pitiful without his American snark. Banner ignored him, instead moving to the unconscious super-soldier (whose decidedly solid and near-unbreakable body had only served to destroy a couch, a desk and dent the wall when he'd been thrown backwards in the blast. Everyone else except Thor had simply landed in ungraceful heaps - though somehow Natasha had landed more or less upright on a chair, looking as though she'd merely nodded off whilst reading. The Black Widow was an enigma to end all enigmas) in the hope that _Captain America_ would speak English.

“Steve!” Banner said, going over to the leader of their group and prodding him, but to no avail. He then decided to move Steve into one of the (intact) couches; at the very least he'd wake up in a more comfortable position) only to find that, despite the Other Guy's immense strength, Bruce Banner himself was only strong mentally. “Tony!” He eventually called,

“Sí?” Tony perked up, at the very least, understanding his name,

“Come help me with Steve!” Banner told him, heaving one of the Captain’s arms around his shoulders and trying to haul him upright. He was a big guy, and would require more than one person to lift him (he could have asked Thor, but he could barely understand the man when his Allspeak was functioning, and he seemed to be in the middle of a heavily charades-based conversation with Natasha and Clint). Tony at least seemed to have more grasp of the world around him and was usually more comprehensible; the others had taken to calling them the _Science Bros_ , but for good reason; they were pratically finishing each other's sentences.

“¿Cómo?”

“HELP. ME. WITH. STEVE.” Banner said through gritted teeth, gesturing as wildly to the man he was half-lifting off the ground and forcing himself to try and keep a lid on it. Tony grinned, finally understanding.

“ _Oh_ _!_ Ayudarle con Steve!” He chirped, “Por supuesto!” He got up from the sofa and slung Steve’s other arm around his own shoulders, and they hefted him onto the sofa, where he continued to lie unconscious. Banner slapped his face lightly.

“Steve!” He said, and when the taps didn't work, he shook Steve lightly, “Steve, can you hear me?” He shook the Captain again, but there was no response. He was just about to start yelling again, or go to fetch a glass of cold water to splash on him, when there was a knock at the door.

 _Unless it’s someone who can speak Russian, ASL and Spanish I do **not** have time for this now!_ Banner through savagely, seriously considering beating the newcomer over the head with a stick and damning the consequences to hell.

“Uh, hello? Anyone in there? The door won’t open from the outside...” Bruce’s anger dissipated upon hearing the newcomer’s voice; weirdly enough, his prayer (or dangerously-sincere threat) had been answered. The voice belonged to Bucky Barnes, AKA the Winter Soldier. Someone who spoke Russian, ASL and Spanish (well, he didn’t know about the ASL thing for sure, but two out of three was plenty good enough).

“Bucky!” Banner’s cry was probably more high-pitched than he would have liked it to be, but he didn’t really care. He ran over to the door and cracked open the cover over the security panel. If there was an explosion on a floor, the entire floor went into lockdown until it was cleared by imputing a code – one that only banner an Tony knew, since they were the only ones deemed “qualified enough” to know when something posed a danger.

Despite the fact that it was Tony’s fault that they were in this mess to start with.

“Banner?” Bucky exclaimed from the other side of the door, “What’s going on? Why can’t I get in? JARVIS won’t respond.”

“The experiment!” he replied, punching in the security code and letting Bucky in. “It went wrong! There was a big blue blast and everyone was thrown backwards, Steve got knocked out...” he trailed off in his nervousness, but made himself calm his breathing; he needed to keep his heart rate down; the last thing they needed was the Other Guy making an appearance.

“They’ve all started speaking their first language,” he explained, “And their first language _only_. Steve is still out and I can’t understand anyone but you.” He stepped towards the metal-armed man, “You speak other languages, right?” he asked, “You were in the KGB, they taught you other languages, didn’t they?”

“Yeah, but, I don’t think that’s gonna help you now...” he said sheepishly, “Because that blast you’re talking about...it hit me, too.”

“Oh fantastic.” Banner muttered, “I’m stuck in the Tower with a Russian, a deaf guy, a Spaniard, a knocked-out Captain and a multi-lingual soldier who can only speak English.”

“Hey!” Bucky frowned at him, “It’s not my fault another one of your and Tony’s experiments went wrong!” he folded his arms and scowled, but then relented, “Have you tried JARVIS?”

“I did.” Banner said flatly, “Didn’t work.” he added, equally flatly.

“Really? Is he busted?”

“Of a sort.”

“Meaning?”

“Find out yourself. He responds in here.”

“But he doesn’t work?”

“Try it, see what happens.” Banner’s voice was almost scathing in his stress and irritation. _Heart rate down,_ he thought, _keep your heart rate down._

“Uh...JARVIS?” Bucky asked carefully, “Can...can you hear us?”

“ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ONE-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ZERO-ZERO-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ZERO-ZERO-ZERO-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ZERO!” Was the reply; so sudden and unexpected to the soldier that he lept back, and landed on Steve.

“SHIT!” Bucky exclaimed, pulling himself, up, “Sorry, Steve! Didn’t see you there!” he paused and noted his friend moving, “Oh, hey! Banner, he’s waking up!”

“Oh, thank god...” Bruce muttered, “Steve, you okay?”

“Bucky?” He mumbled, rubbing his head, “Bruce?” he sat up properly and slowly, seeming very dazed. He looked up at his two friends, “cad a tharla?” he asked them, “Dar liomtá mé buailte ag a ton brící...”

“Oh you have **GOT** to be kidding me!” Banner snapped, “First Tony speaks Spanish and now Steve’s speaking...what the hell is that, anyway? Irish?”

“Yeah.” Bucky replied, “I knew he spoke it, but I had no idea it was his first language. I met him when I was six, he spoke English as good as anyone...”

“Well apparently it _is_ his first language!” Banner said crossly,

Hug, Bruce, calma síos,” Steve said, getting to his feet, “Cad atá ar siúl om?”

“Rud a chuaigh cearr leis turgnamh Tony.” Bucky replied, then his jaw dropped. As did Banner’s.

“Wait...” he muttered, “Did...did I just speak Irish?”

“Bucky, ní raibh a fhios agam labhair tú Gaeilge.” Steve remarked, _I didn’t know you spoke Irish_.

“ _I don’t Steve,_ ” Bucky replied, “ _Or at least...I **didn’t**..._ ”

“Huh...” Banner muttered, regarding the conversation with some amusement, “Looks like Tony’s experiment worked a little after all. If you’re a certain distance away, the translating thing works.”

“So I can talk to the others?” Bucky asked.

“ _James, what are you doing here?_ ” The Russian coming from Natasha’s mouth had never sounded so foreign, but he still understood it.

“ _Tony’s experiment._ ” he said to her, “ _Its making all of you speak in your first languages only_.”

“ _But what about you?_ ” she asked him, “ _You’re speaking Russian like normal, American Boy_.”

“ _It had a different effect on me, Natalia._ ” he told he, “ _It worked on me. I can understand everyone_.”

“Whilst I hate to interrupt your little chat,” Banner said, tapping him on the shoulder, “Could you tell the others? We need them all to be on the same page.” he looked at Tony, who was somewhat able to talk to Steve, mostly through the use of wild and erratic hand gestures, “More importantly, we need Tony to fix the translator and get them all back to normal.”

* * *

Five very stressful and multi-cultural hours later, everyone was back to normal, and was enjoying a nice American dinner of pizza and beer as they relayed the day’s events to each other.

“My Allspeak failed!” Thor was proclaiming, “I sounded to you how I sound to myself!”

“So you speak Old Norse all the time?” Clint asked, relieved to once more have command of his mouth and ears – they had both been working fine, earlier, but he had no longer understood _how_ to speak English. It had been faintly terrifying, really; a cacophony of mindless noise. He'd been too on edge to be of much help even if he _had_ been able to do anything useful with the experiment or its machinery.

“Að sjálfsögðu er!” The Norse god grinned, making everyone, for a moment, freeze, but then he grinned and continued in English, “It is my mother tongue.”

“I think no one was surprised when Nat started speaking Russian, though.” Steve said to them, “Though _I_ for one, am curious, Tony.” He turned to the playboy billionaire philanthropist tucked under his shoulder and grinned, “Spanish? Really?”

“Like you’re one to talk, leprechaun-boy.” Tony replied smoothly, earning an _ooooh!_ from the rest of the group, “Irish, right? How did _that_ happen?”

He shrugged, “My parents were Irish.” he said, “My mom wanted me to remember my roots.” He kissed Tony’s forehead, then asked, “But I know for a _fact_ that your old man was American, so how did _you_ end up speaking Spanish before English?”

Tony smiled at the kiss from his boyfriend, but shrugged, “I had nannied from the moment I was born.” he said, “My first one – Niñera Mariana – was my nanny until I was six. She spoke very little English, so she talked to me in Spanish.” he shrugged again, “Guess I picked it up along with the English my parents used.”

“ _Before_ , I think you mean.” Natasha said pointedly, “If you were speaking Irish," she glanced at Steve, then back to Tony, "Then you learned it before you learned English.”

“I’m just glad one of you had English as a first language,” Banner sighed, “All the Spanish and Russian was doing my head in – plus I’m pretty sure Clint was swearing at me in sign language.”

“Yup.” Clint muttered, raising a beer bottle to his lips, “It was weird, though,” he said, “I could still hear because my hearing aids still worked, but it didn’t _mean_ anything to me.” he shook his head, “It was like I was tripping. Wasn’t fun.”

“Now you know how I felt.” Banner murmured, “I felt like I was losing my mind, didn’t help that all JARVIS was doing was yelling numbers at me.”

“Actually, now that we’re on the subject; J?” Tony looked up at the ceiling, “What was it like speaking in binary for a day?”

“ZERO-ONE-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ONE-ONE-ZERO-ZERO-ONE-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ONE-ONE-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ONE-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ZERO-ZERO-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ZERO-ZERO-ZERO-ZERO-ZERO-ONE-ONE-ZERO-ZERO-ONE-ONE-ZERO-ZERO-ONE-ONE-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ONE-ZERO-ONE-ONE-ONE-ZERO.” Came the reply, and everyone groaned aloud,

“Shit, I thought I fixed you!” Tony exclaimed, then yelped as Steve pinched his arm,

“Language!” he deplored, then cringed. He'd be hearing that for another month at least, now.

“Sorry, sir,” came JARVIS’ cool British tones in English once more, “I couldn’t resist a small joke. Nonetheless, I found it very alarming that my linguistics had malfunctioned; I could understand all of you as part of my translator software was unharmed, but my verbal chip was tampered with by the blast, so I could not say so.”

“Hey, at least you’re not talking in binary anymore.” Steve shrugged, “It’s pretty harsh on the ears.”

“As is my _language_ , apparently.” Tony said scathingly, “ _Burro_.” At that, everyone laughed,

Steve leant in close to Tony’s ear, bending down as Tony was still laying on his shoulder – their positions mimicking Natasha and Bucky who were sat across from them – and muttered, “Whilst I’m sure you just insulted me–” He had, “burro” meant _jackass_ or _donkey_ ), “–remember that for the bedroom, you sound sexy in Spanish.”

“Me suena sexy en Inglés, también, burro.” Tony winked, and Natasha groaned,

“That is _such_ a cheap line, Stark.” she laughed, and Tony frowned,

“Since when do you speak Spanish, Romanoff?" he asked, smiling confusedly, "I thought you were Russian. Or is that another cover?” he added with a grin, to which she rolled her eyes,

“I _am_.” she said, “But the experiment’s not affecting me anymore, remember? The fact I’m speaking English is a hint.” She smirked at Tony, who mock yawned,

“What’s your point?” He asked,

“I can speak several languages.” Was her reply, then she turned to her own boyfriend, “We both can.” She leant up and kissed Bucky (well, to her he would always be James) lightly on the jaw. He grinned and leant down to meet her kiss, making everyone groan again.

“Save it for the bedroom, you disgusting heterosexuals!” Tony exclaimed dramatically, throwing a pillow at them. Natasha and Bucky broke apart to look at Steve and Tony. Steve and Bucky were both laughing, but Tony was grinning at Natasha, who was looking at him with a challenging expression, though there was a twitch at the corner of her mouth that was as mischievous as Tony's.

“You wanna fight me, Stark?” she asked him, one eyebrow raised

“Not even a little bit.” Tony said blankly, “I don’t have a death wish.”

Steve laughed again, “Wise move, _burro_.” he said, snaking the arm that wasn’t holding a non-alcoholic beer bottle around Tony’s middle and pulling him back down against his shoulder, kissing his temple. “I’m rather fond of you, and you wouldn’t last two minutes against Nat.”

“Hey! Thanks for the vote of confidence!” Tony exclaimed, sarcastically and mock-hurt, which subsequently caused the quartet to devolve into a childish squabble whilst Thor watched in amusement.

Banner sighed and turned to Clint, “Now I’m starting to think I should’ve let you all stay speaking different languages.” he said.

 _I know what you mean_. Clint signed gravely, but he grinned when Banner glared,

“Don’t you start.” he muttered, earning a laugh from the archer, “I’ve had enough multi-culturalism for a year after today.”

**Author's Note:**

> OK, update since apparently Steve wasn't speaking Gaelic, nor anything close to it (blame Google, French is my linguistic sweet spot) so I just changed it to (what should be, but I don't entirely trust Google) Irish, as well as some other minor edits.


End file.
